Greg Kaufmann

This Week in Poverty: Fighting Poverty Through Wall Street Accountability

Greg Kaufmann on May 17, 2013 - 10:32 AM ET

(Photo: Press Association via AP Images)

This year, I’ve been focused on how anti-poverty activists can move from a defensive battle defined by trying to save what needs to be saved during these budget debates, to an offensive one, laying out a vision that inspires ongoing, unified action and builds a vibrant movement that connects with people in their communities.

I offered one modest proposal for an “anti-poverty contract”—five issues that impact both low-income and middle class people—around which activists and groups could organize. The Western Center on Law & Poverty and a handful of other national and local groups are trying to build an effort around that idea.

However, when you consider the scale of the problems we face—and what inspires people to take action—clearly much, much more is needed. As I wrote previously, to build a new anti-poverty movement will require the kind of organizing and actions that are as creative, visible and gripping as the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Enter Stephen Lerner.

Lerner is a labor and community organizer who has spent more than three decades organizing hundreds of thousands of janitors, farm workers, garment workers and other low-wage workers into unions. These efforts resulted in increased wages, first-time health benefits, paid sick days and other improvements on the job. The architect of the historic Justice for Janitors campaign, he is currently working with unions and community groups across the country to break Wall Street’s anti-democratic grip on our politics and our economy.

Lerner lays out a powerful case about the intersection between poverty and Wall Street accountability—and how a Wall Street accountability movement can transform an economy that offers so few pathways out of poverty, and so many ways to keep people impoverished.

Here is our conversation:

Greg Kaufmann: Why is the Wall Street accountability movement now the focus of your work, and what is the potential you see there?

Stephen Lerner: One of the challenges is that there are so many things wrong right now—that you can be involved in any of a thousand causes. The problem is if they are disconnected it doesn’t add up to anything. So, people who are opposed to poverty have a dozen different things they’d like to move on the Hill, none of which are likely to pass at this time.

So the focus on Wall Street is: How do you connect all of these different battles? And, in fact, are there core things in common that drive them together?

If you look at some of the biggest issues of the day—whether it’s the loss of wealth in communities of color, the housing crisis, the student debt crisis, local and state governments cutting jobs and services because of debt—you can connect all of these issues to the original economic crisis of 2008, and the growing and continued dominance of the Wall Street big banks.

The majority of people in this country are either impacted by student debt, the ongoing housing crisis or the crisis of the public sector. And you can trace so much of it to Wall Street. This means instead of having twenty separate campaigns, you can have one campaign, that says how do we rebalance and reorganize the economy so that it benefits everybody—not just a teeny elite at the top.

How does the effort to address these three issues intersect with the fight against poverty in particular?

Let’s start with housing. In this country, for many workers and people of color, wealth isn’t in the stock market, or the Cayman Islands—it’s in a home. And the banks first preyed on folks through subprime loans pre-crisis, making enormous profits while putting people in danger. Then when the bubble burst, millions of people lost their homes, and those who didn’t have had outrageous payments because the subprime loans exploded. Now you still have 13 million families that are underwater—owing more on their loans than their homes are worth.

In Latino communities, 66 percent of their wealth was lost, half as a result of housing. In the African-American community, it was 53 percent. Fifty years of the gains of the civil rights movement and the expansion of the economy were wiped out overnight, pushing millions into poverty. If you add to that the people who are unemployed as a result of the crashed economy—we just have this strange thing that happened: the banks created a disaster, and economists and politicians said, “That’s terrible for the economy, let’s give them trillions.” And then the folks who were actually hit the hardest were forced into poverty.

On student debt: funding to public education was dramatically cut, which obviously hurts poor people and workers the most. As it was cut, people had to take out loans. So 37 million people have now run up a trillion dollars in student debt. It’s a burden no matter what, but if you come from a family that doesn’t have means, you now graduate from school with a crushing debt burden, and then there aren’t jobs available. And there’s a vicious cycle: you cut the budget of public universities, to give tax breaks to banks and big companies, who respond by creating toxic loan packages for students that they make a profit on. And because public funding of universities has been cut—the schools need to borrow more money in order to operate and build, so the banks get a piece of that action, too. And now university endowments are investing in Sallie Mae—the largest private student loan lender—so students have to take out loans to go to school, and the university endowment profits off those loans.

There are much better ways to fund education—like by [publicly] funding education so people can actually afford it, instead of creating these twenty layers that let Wall Street suck money out at every step.

So individuals and families are getting crushed by housing and education debt, and then you say public debt completes a sort of perfect storm?

That’s right, what we call predatory public loans. So three things have happened: Wall Street has taken advantage of the desperation of cities and municipalities since the crisis; the deals are so complex that public entities don’t know what they are getting into; and third is that Wall Street gets its money at a subsidized, Too Big to Fail rate, and in the case of the discount window, almost for free. Banks get money at .075 percent interest from the Federal Reserve, and they then create all sorts of ways to make more and more money off the spread, from the public sector.

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Take interest rate swaps, for example. On the surface it sounds like not a bad idea—a bank says they will protect a city from a fluctuating interest rate by locking it in at, say, 4 percent. If it goes higher, they eat it. And if it goes lower, they make money. But they then add so many different formulas and traps, that all of a sudden when the whole thing blew up during the crisis and a city is hemorrhaging money, and they want to get out of it, it turns out that they have an exit fee that’s extraordinary and they can’t afford it. In Detroit, the city had to pay around $470 million on a series of bond and interrelated swap deals gone bad at the same time they were laying off police and firemen. So then you end up in fights like, “Do we help the poor, or do we take workers that are middle class and cut their wages so they’ll be poor?”

Describe what this movement looks like—what are some of the asks and how do you see it potentially playing out?

There are multiple levels of how Wall Street is impoverishing the country, and so different people can engage in different ways.

On housing, in Atlanta, Minneapolis, all over California—one piece is the Home Defenders League and Occupy Our Homes. This involves physical encampments, blockading the police and saying you’re not going to take my home, or my neighbor’s home. It’s incredibly vibrant, street-level resistance—and it’s often successful. And as folks are successful, it grows. This is all nonviolent, and involves people who are willing to go to jail.

If you take it up a level, there is a simple policy demand, which is that banks should reduce principal on homes to current market value. That means if you’re paying a $300,000 mortgage on a home that’s worth $200,000, the bank should rewrite it to that value. If we did that, it would save $700 billion to $1 trillion—that’s how much people are underwater—and generate $101 billion in economic activity, create 1.5 million jobs, and the average underwater homeowner would save $7,700 a year.

There are cities all over the country that are now exploring using eminent domain to seize these underwater mortgages and rewrite them with principal reductions. For years eminent domain was the tool to take advantage of poor people—tear up a neighborhood, build a highway, build a stadium and tell people they will be paid what their homes are worth on the open market. They said it was for the public good, even as it devastated once stable neighborhoods. We’re saying let’s flip that on it’s head—for the public good, let’s seize these mortgages and rewrite them at current market value so people can stay in their homes.

On student debt, there is a gamut of activity ranging from student activism on campuses, to state and local legislation, to sit-ins at the Sallie Mae shareholders meeting, to challenging the Education Department on why they have as contractors like Sallie Mae that are profiting off this disaster. The movement includes Senator Elizabeth Warren’s brilliant bill to give students loans at the same rate we give to banks. Why should banks get money cheap and student loans be more expensive? And it includes people on their college campuses—a movement around Big Banks Off Campus—because the banks shouldn’t be allowed to come on campus and sell their credit cards and figure out new ways to indebt students.

Finally, on public debt, people are fighting back. In the case of Oregon, SEIU Local 503 calculated that the state lost $110 million because of the LIBOR manipulations. So here’s what happens: the SEIU public sector union goes in to negotiate with the state representing public employees, and the state says we want to cut all of these services for poor people. And the workers themselves are often poor—homecare workers who haven’t had a raise in six years. The state says there is no money. And how do you argue if there’s no money? Except that the money was stolen! And so the movement is changing the debate. This is not about: Are public employees overpaid? Are their too many benefits for poor people? Should we have pre-K or not? There are incredible sums of money out there, but we’ve devised a system that drains it from the bottom to the top. Why don’t we cut out the middleman? Like let’s have an infrastructure bank and loan the money at cost. Let’s figure out a way so banks can’t make more than a certain amount of money on the spread. And I know that gives the free-market people heart attacks, because this is intervening in the market, but there is no market. Because five banks control it, and where they get their money is from taxpayers. It’s our money.

To what extent are these three threads—on student debt, housing debt and public debt—coalescing into a movement so they aren’t the kind of independent, divided struggles that you suggest hold us back from big victories?

As the campaigns develop, the overlap happens more and more. For example, people are seeing the relationship between housing debt and student debt—needing to take out student loans because your family’s house isn’t worth anything anymore so you can’t help finance an education through a second mortgage like you might have in the past. At the Wells Fargo meeting at Salt Lake City, folks campaigning about student debt showed up, and so did people campaigning on housing, and so did people about the environment. So, on an organic level on the street, people are seeing it more and more.

After I covered the actions at the Wells Fargo shareholders meeting, a progressive friend and writer told me, “The activists seem to think banks can’t ignore their message, that being heard is equivalent to making change.” How do you think a movement like this actually could make principal reduction, for example, a reality?

First, the enemy of change is the notion that if you are not winning at that moment then you are losing. These things never have an even flow. It’s not like you start one day, you have steady escalation—they go up and down. In Taylor Branch’s book At Canaan’s Edge, you read these transcripts of FBI wiretaps on civil rights leaders and it’s them saying, “We’re losing”… or “so and so was killed”… or “we have in-fighting, how will we win?” But when we look back at that period now, we see that the civil rights bill was going to pass, it was all going to happen. I think when you are in the middle of the battle, under siege, you can’t see the forest for the trees.

But your friend’s critique is fair in that we’ve been screaming about the banks for years, and they are more powerful than ever—the top six banks now control 73 percent of the total assets in the US banking sector. However, we’ve started to identify some levers that we think begin to level the playing field. Eminent domain is one example—if you’re not willing to reduce principal, then we’ll use the power of the city to force you to do it. On LIBOR, city after city is investigating whether they can sue to get their money back. Many are exploring, and some have passed, bills that say if banks don’t meet certain standards the cities won’t deal with them anymore. Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have all passed responsible banking ordinances recently.

Also, the banks’ greed and hubris is so great that [there are] new avenues to go after them. So if you look at the litigation that California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed: this is where the banks essentially did the same thing with credit card loans that they did with mortgages—they moved to litigation without accurate documentation to even show that people owed them money. We are seeing more opportunities for growing protest, more litigation and more public policy changes. You even now have Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter working together on a bill to break up the big banks.

Is there a role in this movement for people and organizations that are focused on the Hill?

Petitions can raise important issues and get people involved. Lobbying can be important—but I think what we need to do is connect all of this to an analysis of who the villains are and why the economy is unbalanced. This is not a problem of lack of policy—we have unlimited great policy ideas. This is not a problem of lack of money to fund anti-poverty programs. This is a problem of power. I think people need to accept that there is no real significant economic and political change as long as the finance sector is so dominant. The DC-centric stuff will be far more effective if there is something out there in the rest of the country brewing. If this is just an intellectual policy debate about who has the best idea and who has the best statistics, we’re doomed.

To win—to really make the kinds of structural changes you are talking about—does the public protest need to be as constant and visible, engaging and creative, as Occupy Wall Street?

Yes, we need to get to that. And there is an interesting myth about Occupy that somehow it just emerged out of nowhere. But many of the people who were engaged in it were part of other battles before Occupy Wall Street. The month before Occupy, community groups were doing rallies and sit-ins at banks all over the country. So you never know when things are going to take off. Why did the Vietnam protests take off when they did? Or the civil rights protests? You never know what triggers something to go from dedicated souls to a mass movement.

But your key point is right—the system is currently working for the banks and super-rich. And as long as they feel it’s working we won’t really achieve change. And so some combination of mass disruptive protest—nonviolent—of all sorts of local legislative activity; of a growing change in the narrative. Some mix and match of that has to put the kind of heat on them that makes them feel they have to negotiate over these issues—that they need, for example, to fix mortgages because the alternative is worse. We need to have a better system on student loans, because the alternative is worse. I think that’s really our challenge.

In a recent piece, you suggest that anger is insufficient to sustain a movement—that what keeps people going is love. Can you describe what you mean by that?

There are four things currently that are self-defeating for progressives and labor folks: one, the mantra of progressives is built on “we’re losing, there’s no hope, we’re getting clobbered.” That leads to the slogan of much of the progressive movement, which is “Let’s fight for small, incremental, not particularly important change now.” So what we largely talk about isn’t very inspiring. We talk about stopping cuts—stopping bad—not how we win good things.

The great movements—take the story of Exodus—they didn’t say, “Can the Egyptians whip us less often?” They said, “We’re leaving. We’re outta here. We’re gonna form a new country, a place where we can be free.” Gandhi, South Africa, the civil rights movement—all of these movements were based on this idea that there is something profoundly better that we can fight for. And I think for many of us in America we’ve lost that ability to say we’re engaged in this—not just because we care about principal reduction but because we believe in the richest country on earth we can transform society and redistribute wealth and power. So, we need to have a vision that’s inspiring and not be afraid to be called a little utopian.

Second, we need an analysis, a narrative, of who the bad guys are that are concentrating wealth and power. All of the organizing I was involved with—with the garment workers, the farmworkers and the janitors—they all had an analysis of who really had the power and could fix things, and I think we’ve forgotten how to do that.

Third, we need to think about the strategy and tactics that give us leverage, so this is not simply yelling and screaming. And fourth is about love—which is that people are involved both out of self-interest because they want to make their lives better; but also because they realize their life is better if they help make other lives better.

If you look at the great movements that’s what happens—some combination of vision, analysis, strategy and this deep, deep feeling that by supporting and sacrificing for others—in the labor movement we call it solidarity—you not only transform your own life, but you transform the lives of people around you and in doing that transform how society operates. That’s the roots of how we build what we have to build.

* * *

End “Too Big to Jail”: May 18–23, Washington, DC

If you think what Lerner has to say makes sense, here’s an immediate opportunity to get involved. Next week, families on the front lines of the foreclosure crisis are traveling from across the country to the nation’s capital to make their voices heard.

Their message is simple: five years into the financial crisis, Wall Street has still not been held accountable, and communities are still suffering. In fact, a new report from Alliance for a Just Society, the New Bottom Line and Home Defenders League shows that $192.6 billion in wealth was lost due to the foreclosure crisis in 2012, and this year another 13 million homes are at risk of foreclosure with $221 billion in wealth on the line. (See “Studies/Briefs” below for more information on this report.)

It’s long past time for the administration to prosecute those who violated the law and for the banks to repay individuals, families and communities that continue to suffer losses—beginning with reducing their mortgages to fair market value.

“We can’t have two systems of justice in this country: one for the rich and powerful, where Wall Street criminals are actually rewarded with bailouts and huge bonuses, and another for the rest of us,” said Vivian Richardson, who will be in DC next week after successfully defending her home from foreclosure with the help of members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “These Wall Street banksters stole many homes, and are still committing crimes. It is time for them to be held accountable.”

There will be home-defense and nonviolent, civil disobedience trainings on May 18–19 and a rally and march to the Department of Justice on Monday, May 20. The activists will attempt to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and are prepared to take direct action if that doesn’t happen—blocking entrances, setting up an Occupy-style encampment, getting arrested and staying in jail.

To participate in the Week of Action, you can RSVP here. To take part in the direct action on May 20, fill out this form.

Online Actions

Wendy’s: Support a fair deal for farmworkers

Tell the Senate to give students the same low interest rates the big banks get

Stand with Milwaukee’s low-wage workers

Young and Unemployed: Tell Bernie Sanders Your Story

End Sequestration Cuts

Tell Congress: Protect Federal Nutrition Programs

Event

Democratizing Wealth and a Sustainable Future—A Conversation with Gar Alperovitz (Wednesday, May 22, 12:15 pm–1:15 pm, New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW Suite 400, Washington, DC). In his new book, Gar Alperovitz presents a case for democratizing wealth as a foundation for a new and sustainable economy. He offers specific policy ideas for how we might start with a transformation of the banking industry and health care sector. Join the New America Foundation’s Asset Building Program for a vibrant discussion, RSVP here.

DC Housing Authority and People with Disabilities

Jacqueline Young and Latheda Wilson both receive housing vouchers from the DC Housing Authority. Ms. Young’s apartment is too small for her to live with her child, and Ms. Wilson is in an apartment that she says is in substandard condition with mold- and insect-infestation.

Both women have hearing impairments and rely on American Sign Language to communicate—they have limited comprehension of written English. Unfortunately, they say, for years the DC Housing Authority failed to provide sign language interpreters at meetings where critical information regarding rules, regulations and requirements for the rental assistance program was provided, leaving the two women in their current predicaments.

A lawsuit was filed on their behalf by Relman, Dane & Colfax, which litigates civil rights cases in the areas of housing, lending, employment, public accommodations, education and police accountability, and the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. Deaf-REACH, a DC nonprofit advocacy organization, is also a plaintiff.

The complaint alleges that the Housing Authority engaged for years in a pattern of discrimination—promising but not providing interpreters, and canceling appointments due to a lack of interpreters or other effective means of communication.

“The law is very clear and well-established on this issue,” said attorney Megan Cacace of Relman, Dane & Colfax. “Entities like the DC Housing Authority must make their services and programs accessible to people with disabilities and provide sign language interpreters.”

Cacace said Young and Wilson were forced to sit through meetings or presentations without any way of understanding what was being said—or even were denied the opportunity to attend meetings at all—and that they were expected “to communicate through notes and gestures” despite repeated requests for interpreters.

“It’s appalling and unacceptable,” said Cacace.

Richard White, director of Public Affairs and Communications for the Housing Authority, wrote in an e-mail: “As a matter of policy, I’m not going to comment on active litigation. What I will tell you is that DCHA takes its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act very seriously. We have policies and procedures in place to accommodate the needs of the disabled in all our operations. We will investigate the claims made and respond to the litigation, through our General Counsel office.”

I look forward to learning about the response and hope that it’s quick, thorough and just. This is the twenty-first century and our nation’s capital, after all. It’s bad enough that we are among the cities with the worst wealth inequality and highest child poverty rates in the country. Can we at least provide basic services for people with disabilities?

“Equality for people with disabilities is an important civil rights issue,” said Cacace. “People like Ms. Young and Ms. Wilson are entitled to, and deserve, equal treatment and respect. This lawsuit seeks to vindicate those rights.”

National Community Action Month

Community Action Agencies (CAAs) are nonprofit private and public organizations with their fingers on the pulse of poverty. They provide direct support for nearly 35 million of the 46.2 million people living in poverty in the United States today.

Each CAA is governed locally and offers programs and services designed to meet a community’s specific needs, including: emergency aid like food pantries and domestic violence counseling, education programs like Head Start and youth mentoring, daycare and job training programs, community economic development, services to military veterans, income management and housing assistance, healthcare clinics, WIC and more.

May is National Community Action Month, a public awareness campaign created by the Community Action Partnership in 1997 to highlight the agencies’ effectiveness in helping America’s low-income people and communities achieve economic security. The CAAs and the people they serve are currently getting hit by sequestration, budget cuts and rising hunger and unemployment, and will hold events to call attention to poverty and economic inequality, and to advocate for their programs as a way to help address these issues.

“While policymakers and hedge fund managers are trying to decide what to do with their Enron refrigerator magnets and their Merrill Lynch shot glasses, Community Action is approaching its fiftieth year of providing bona fide opportunities and economic security for millions of people and families,” said Don Mathis, president and CEO of the Community Action Partnership.

CAAs across the country are hosting poverty symposiums, town hall meetings and other events to raise awareness about poverty-related problems and solutions. Here are just a few of the events:

Arizona Community Action Association and Community Action of Northeast Indiana are hosting screenings of A Place at the Table.

TRI-CAP in Jasper, Indiana, is hosting a poverty simulation.

North Hudson Community Action Corporation in Union City, New Jersey, is hosting a health fair with free dental, blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes screenings, along with nutrition and health information.

“Our network of more than 1,000 CAAs is focusing on the devastating effects that the severe income and wealth gaps are having on everyone in America, not just the poor,” said Mathis.

For more information, go to the National Community Action Month blog, the Partnership’s website, or follow @CAPartnership and #CommunityActionMonth.

Clips and other resources (compiled with James Cersonsky)

“Class Size & Funding Inequity in NY State & NY City,” Bruce Baker

“Fast Food Strikes Hitting Fifth City: Milwaukee,” Josh Eidelson

“In Wake of West, Texas Explosion, Safety Advocates Recommend Harsher Fines,” Mike Elk

“Mother’s Day Edition: Challenges Give Strength,” Equal Voice

“Unemployment From a Child’s Perspective,” Julia Isaacs

“Unions to Banks: Pay Up,” Sarah Jaffe

“The Link Between Mass Incarceration and Voter Turnout,” John Light

“Parents to Lawmakers: Protect Child Care, Social Services,” Michael Mello and Brad Wong

“Mending factory conditions after Bangladesh,” Harold Meyerson

“Welfare fraud investigations perpetuate fraudulent stereotypes,” Monica Peabody

“Lift the Millstone of Student Debt That’s Slowing the Economy,” Isaiah J. Poole

“The Facts on SNAP: SNAP Is Efficient,” Dottie Rosenbaum

“In D.C., parents miss work, lose jobs trying to get child-care subsidy,” Brigid Schulte

“Racism Remains Alive and Well,” Patricia Williams

“Leaning in With Child Care: A Discussion on Childcare Jobs and the Need for Quality, Affordable Care,” Workforce Strategies Initiative, Aspen Institute [VIDEO]

“Congress is Ready to Fight Over Deep Food Stamp Cuts,” George Zornick

Studies/Briefs (summaries written by James Cersonsky)

“Enhancing GED Instruction to Prepare Students for College and Careers,” Vanessa Martin and Joseph Broadus, MDRC. In many large cities, students face dropout/pushout rates upwards of 50 percent. Many who drop out pursue the GED, or General Educational Development credential, but too few pass the GED test, and even fewer are prepared to step into college or the workforce. This study assesses an initiative at LaGuardia Community College, the GED Bridge to Health and Business Program, which is designed to help students pass the GED while simultaneously preparing for college and careers. Students in the program receive intensive advising and spend more hours in class than typical GED students. In a randomized evaluation, MDRC finds encouraging results: compared with students who went through traditional GED prep, Bridge students were twice as likely to complete the semester of classes, more than twice as likely to pass the exam and more than three times as likely to enroll in a CUNY school.

“Wasted Wealth: How the Wall Street Crash Continues to Stall Economic Recovery and Deepen Racial Inequity in America,” Ben Henry, Jill Reese and Angel Torres, Alliance for a Just Society. The Great Recession took a racially uneven toll: whereas white median net worth fell by 16 percent between 2005 and 2009, net worth for Latinos dropped 66 percent and blacks 52 percent. As 2012 foreclosure data reveals, the foreclosure crisis has far from abated—particularly for people of color. Overall, foreclosures caused a $192.6 million aggregate drop in wealth in 2012—an average of $1,679 per household—and more than 13 million homes remain underwater and vulnerable to foreclosure. In zip codes with proportions of people of color above the national average (16 percent), the average lost wealth per household was $2,008, and in zip codes with majority people of color, the loss was $2,198. Why the ongoing crisis? While banks have received $8 trillion in federal bailouts and loans, the feds haven’t acted on principal reduction—which would save underwater homeowners an average of $7,710 and stimulate the economy to the tune of 1.5 million jobs. The report offers a slate of proposals for government and banks, including: ensuring that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prioritize keeping families in foreclosed homes through rental and buy-back programs; full legal accountability for Wall Street executive and bankers; legislation like the California Homeowner Bill of Rights that protects homeowners from abusive mortgage servicing; local foreclosure mediation programs; and public reporting from mortgage servicers on foreclosures, short sales and principal reductions by race and income.

“A Strategic Road-Map,” Academic Pediatric Association, Taskforce on Childhood Poverty. While there’s no vaccine to end child poverty, the APA says, there are clear strategies for combating its causes and effects. The APA’s road map focuses on four categories: raising children out of poverty through raising the minimum wage, increasing access to quality jobs and improving income and work supports such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit; high-quality childcare and early childhood programs for low-income families; “place-based” initiatives, recognizing that poverty, crime, housing characteristics and lack of employment opportunities can all have negative impacts on poor children’s health and well-being; and a White House Conference on Children and Youth to elevate children’s needs and build public support for investments.

Vital Statistics

US poverty (less than $17,916 for a family of three): 46.2 million people, 15.1 percent.

Children in poverty: 16.1 million, 22 percent of all children, including 39 percent of African-American children and 34 percent of Latino children. Poorest age group in country.

Deep poverty (less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, 1 in 15 Americans, including more than 15 million women and children.

People who would have been in poverty if not for Social Security, 2011: 67.6 million (program kept 21.4 million people out of poverty).

People in the US experiencing poverty by age 65: Roughly half.

Gender gap, 2011: Women 34 percent more likely to be poor than men.

Gender gap, 2010: Women 29 percent more likely to be poor than men.

Twice the poverty level (less than $46,042 for a family of four): 106 million people, more than 1 in 3 Americans.

Jobs in the US paying less than $34,000 a year: 50 percent.

Jobs in the US paying below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 annually: 25 percent.

Poverty-level wages, 2011: 28 percent of workers.

Percentage of individuals and family members in poverty who either worked or lived with a working family member, 2011: 57 percent.

Families receiving cash assistance, 1996: 68 for every 100 families living in poverty.

Families receiving cash assistance, 2010: 27 for every 100 families living in poverty.

Impact of public policy, 2010: without government assistance, poverty would have been twice as high—nearly 30 percent of population.

Percentage of entitlement benefits going to elderly, disabled, or working households: over 90 percent.

Number of homeless children in US public schools: 1,065,794.

Annual cost of child poverty nationwide: $550 billion.

Federal expenditures on home ownership mortgage deductions, 2012: $131 billion.

Federal funding for low-income housing assistance programs, 2012: less than $50 billion.

Quote of the Week

“There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. Money has to serve, not to rule.”
—Pope Francis

James Cersonsky wrote the “Studies/Briefs” and co-wrote the “Clips and other resources” sections in this blog.

This Week in Poverty posts here on Friday mornings, and again at Moyers & Company. You can e-mail me at WeekInPoverty@me.com and follow me on Twitter.

This Week in Poverty: Twelve Things You Can Do To Fight Poverty Now

Greg Kaufmann on May 10, 2013 - 9:52 AM ET

Farmworkers pick tomatoes in Immokalee, Florida. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

This is a tough moment in the fight against poverty.

The sequester is the latest chapter in a time-honored tradition of kicking the poor when they are down. A do-nothing Congress certainly isn’t going to do something about poverty without pressure from the grassroots. And it seems that the only way most of the mainstream media will pay attention to the more than one in three Americans living below twice the poverty line—on less than $36,000 for a family of three—is if their lives make good fodder for tabloid television or play out in a courtroom drama.

That said, there are still plenty of people and groups fighting for real change, and plenty of ways you can get involved or stay engaged. I reached out to a handful of folks who dedicate their lives to fighting poverty in different ways. Here is what they asked people to do:

1) From Sister Simone Campbell, Sisters of Social Service, executive director of NETWORK: “Support an increase in the minimum wage to more than $11 per hour.”

What people don’t know is that a large percentage of people living in poverty are workers who support their families on very small salaries. In fact, 57 percent of individuals and family members below the official poverty line either worked or lived with a working family member in 2011.

Pope Francis said on May 1, 2013, that all workers should make wages that allow them to live with their families in dignity. Contact your Senators and Representative to urge them to vote for a minimum wage (one that’s more than $11 an hour) and tipped minimum wage that reflect the dignity of all people.

2) From the Coalition of Immokalee Workers: “Tell Publix: Help end sexual harassment, wage theft, and forced labor in the fields—join the Fair Food Program today.”

Until very recently, Florida’s fields were as famous for producing human rights violations—with countless workers suffering daily humiliation and abuse ranging from wage theft to sexual harassment and even forced labor—as they were for growing oranges and tomatoes.

Today, however, there is a new day dawning for farmworkers in Florida’s tomato fields. The CIW’s Fair Food Program is demanding a policy of zero tolerance for human rights abuses on tomato farms, and it’s working. The program sets the highest human rights standards in the fields today, including: worker-to-worker education on rights, a twenty-four-hour complaint line and an effective complaint investigation and resolution process—all backed by market consequences for employers who refuse to respect their workers’ rights.

The White House recently called the exciting new program "one of the most successful and innovative programs” in the world today in the fight to uncover—and prevent—modern-day slavery; and just last week United Nations investigators called it “impressive” and praised its ”independent and robust enforcement mechanism.”

As the veteran food writer Barry Estabrook put it, thanks to the Fair Food Program, the Florida tomato industry is on the path “from being one of the most repressive employers in the country…to becoming the most progressive group in the fruit and vegetable industry” today.

But we need your help to complete this transformation.

One of the country’s largest supermarket chains, Publix Super Markets, is refusing to support the Fair Food Program. Publix continues to buy tomatoes from growers in the old way, where workers have no access to the Fair Food Program’s proven protections. Rather than step up to the highest human rights standards, Publix continues to turn its back on the workers whose poverty helps fuel its record profits.

Tell Publix Super Markets CEO William Crenshaw to join the fight against human rights abuses in the US tomato industry.

3) From Ralph da Costa Nunez, president and CEO, Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness: “Make a Personal Commitment to Helping Homeless Families.”

More than one-third of Americans who use shelters annually are parents and their children. In 2011, that added up to more than 500,000 people. Since 2007, family homelessness has increased by more than 13 percent. Indeed, there is a growing prevalence of child and family homelessness across America.

While it is important to track the federal, state and local policies that impact homelessness, we can’t forget about getting involved on a personal level with the growing numbers of families that are struggling since the Great Recession.

You can visit a local shelter, meet a homeless family and see first hand the damage poverty is doing to young mothers and children. Then, become a big brother or sister, a role model for these young families to help them dream again. You are meeting an immediate need while also helping to stem generational poverty.

You can also contact your local department of social services, United Way or religious organization to find out where the need is in your community. Also, speak with the homeless liaison at your local school to see what needs they have identified in your neighborhood. There are many ways that you (and your children) can help families right in your community. Here are a few other ideas.

4) From Dr. Deborah Frank, founder and principal investigator, Children’s Healthwatch: “Fund the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) at the maximum authorized level.”

Research by Children’s HealthWatch has shown that energy insecurity is associated with poor health, increased hospitalizations and risk of developmental delays in very young children, and that energy assistance can be effective in protecting children’s health. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides low-income households with assistance in paying their utility bills—particularly those that must spend higher proportions of their income on home energy. To be eligible for LIHEAP, families must have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level—less than $35,000 annually for a family of four.

When Children’s HealthWatch compared children in families that do and do not receive LIHEAP assistance—after controlling for participation in SNAP and WIC—we found that children in families that received LIHEAP were less likely to be at risk of growth problems, more likely to have healthier weights for their age and less likely to be hospitalized when seeking care for acute medical problems.

As pediatricians and public health researchers, we at Children’s HealthWatch know that LIHEAP matters for the bodies and minds of young children. Even in these tough economic times, we believe it is critical that President Obama and Congress make a funding commitment that meets the heating and cooling needs of America’s youngest children.

But the President has proposed reducing funding for LIHEAP to $2.970 billion in his FY 2014 budget, down from $3.5 billion for the current fiscal year. (Even funding at the current level has left millions of households without the aid they need to cope with their home energy costs.) Please join the National Fuel Fund’s call to fund LIHEAP at $4.7 billion in FY2014. Although that level is insufficient to meet the full needs of vulnerable households, it will enable states to end a trend over the last few years of needing to reduce the number of households served, cut benefits or both. Contact the President and your members of Congress today.

5) Sarita Gupta, executive director, Jobs with Justice/American Rights at Work and Co-Director, Caring Across Generations: “Support of a living wage and basic labor protections for home care workers.”

Caring Across Generations is a campaign that unites people to change the long-term care system that supports each of us, our family members and our neighbors, to live and age in our own homes and communities. One of the key ways we can strengthen this system is to protect the 2.5 million people working as care givers in the United States. With a projected future demand for an additional 1.3 million workers over the next decade, homecare workers make up one of the largest occupations in the nation, yet many of them make below minimum wage.

In December 2011, at a White House ceremony surrounded by homecare workers, employers and people who rely on personal care services, President Obama announced plans for new regulations that would at long last guarantee federal minimum wage and overtime protections for most homecare aides. The moment capped decades of effort by advocates to revise the “companionship exemption,” which lumps professional care workers with teenage babysitters, excluding most homecare aides from the basic labor protections that nearly all other American workers receive.

Following the White House announcement, the US Department of Labor published draft regulations in the Federal Register. During the public comment period, the proposed rule received 26,000 comments with almost 80 percent in favor of providing homecare workers with basic labor protections like minimum wage and overtime pay. But today, over a year after the public comment period closed, we are still waiting for a final rule to be announced.

Join Caring Across Generations and all of our partner organizations in the effort to push for basic minimum wage and overtime protections for care workers, and help us in our final push to ensure that the Obama Administration issues this long-awaited regulation to give 2.5 million care workers a path out of poverty. Visit www.caringacross.org to get involved with the campaign.

6) From Judith Lichtman, senior adviser, National Partnership for Women & Families: “Urge Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act (H.R. 1286/S.631) and a national paid leave program”

More than 40 million workers in this country—and more than 80 percent of the lowest-wage workers—cannot earn a single paid sick day to use when they get the flu or other common illnesses. Millions more cannot earn paid sick days to use when a child is sick.

For these workers and families, paid sick days can mean the difference between keeping a job and losing it, or keeping food on the table and going hungry. Nearly one-quarter of adults say they have lost a job or been threatened with job loss for needing a sick day. And, for the average worker without paid sick days, taking just 3.5 unpaid days off is equivalent to losing a month’s worth of groceries for their family. To make matters worse, the majority of new parents cannot take any form of paid leave of any length to care for a child, pushing many into debt and poverty. The United States is one of only a handful of countries that does not have a national paid leave standard of some kind.

In a nation that claims to value families, no worker should have to lose critical income or be pushed into poverty because illness strikes or a child or family member needs care.

Urge members of Congress to support the Healthy Families Act, legislation that would guarantee workers the right to earn paid sick days. And sign this petition calling on Congress to take up the national paid leave program workers and families urgently need.

7) From Tiffany Loftin, president, United States Student Association (USSA): “Increase regulation of private student loans and hold Sallie Mae accountable for its role in the student debt crisis.”

Throughout the Great Recession, only one type of household debt grew: student debt.

In April 2012, student debt surpassed the $1 trillion mark, and now students owe on average nearly $27,000 by the time they graduate. As student debt and student loan defaults escalate at an unsustainable pace, private student loan lenders continue to increase their profit margins.

Sallie Mae is the largest private student loan lender and one of the chief profiteers off student debt, yet it faces minimal public scrutiny and accountability. With their sky-high interest rates, highly profitable government loan servicing contracts and predatory lending practices, they play a major role in keeping the American Dream out of reach for millions of borrowers.

Join USSA, the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Jobs with Justice/American Rights at Work, Common Cause, the American Federation of Teachers and others at the Sallie Mae shareholder meeting on May 30 in Newark, Delaware.

We’ll introduce a shareholder resolution asking Sallie Mae to be more transparent and accountable about its lobbying efforts, affiliations and executive bonus structure—all part of a corporate strategy to increase their bottom line at the financial expense of borrowers. Sign up to attend the join the shareholder action here.

8) From Elizabeth Lower-Basch, policy coordinator, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP): “Support Pathways Back to Work”

Even as the economy recovers, too many unemployed workers and individuals with low education and skill levels face a difficult job market. Nearly two in five unemployed workers have been jobless for six months or more; 6.7 million youth are both out of work and out of school.

Subsidized and transitional jobs are a proven way to give unemployed workers the opportunity to earn wages, build skills and connect to the labor market, while also giving businesses an incentive to hire new employees when they might not be able to do so otherwise.

President Obama’s FY14 budget blueprint calls for the creation of a $12.5 billion Pathways Back to Work Fund that includes: investments in subsidized employment opportunities, support services for the unemployed and low-income adults, summer and year-round employment opportunities for low-income youth and other work-based employment strategies with demonstrated effectiveness.

Please share this letter with nonprofits, businesses or other organizations and ask them to sign on to join us in thanking President Obama for his support of subsidized and transitional jobs in the FY2014 budget, and asking the President and Congress to work together to ensure that the Pathways Back to Work Fund becomes law! (This sign-on letter is only for organizations, but individuals are also encouraged to ask their members of Congress to support the Pathways Back to Work Fund—click the “reintroduce” buttons here and here.)

9) From Marci Phillips, director of public policy and advocacy, National Council on Aging: “Invest in the Older Americans Act.”

The Older Americans Act encompasses a range of programs that enable seniors to remain healthy and independent, in their own homes and communities and out of costly institutions. Services include healthy meals, in-home care, transportation, benefits access, caregiver support, chronic disease self-management, job training and placement and elder abuse prevention.

Funding has not kept pace with the growth in need or numbers, and recent cuts before the sequester hit have further eroded investments in key services. About 10,000 people turn 65 each day, and those over 85 are the fastest growing segment of the aging population.

One in three seniors is economically insecure. Social Security accounts for at least 90 percent of the income of more than one-third of older adults, and there has been a 79 percent increase in the threat of hunger among seniors over the past decade. The average duration of unemployment for people 55 and older is almost fifty weeks—longer than any other age group. Over 75 percent of all older adults have at least two chronic conditions, and the average Medicare household spends $4,500 on out-of-pocket healthcare costs.

There is a real need to increase funding for Older Americans Act programs like Meals on Wheels and in-home care. Please share your stories of cuts affecting seniors, so we can share them with Congress and the Administration and protect investments in the Older Americans Act.

10) From Rebecca Vallas, staff attorney/policy advocate, Community Legal Services: “Tell Congress no cuts to Social Security and SSI through the Chained CPI.”

While the “chained CPI” is often referred to as just a technical change, in truth it’s a benefit cut for millions of seniors, people with disabilities and their families who rely on the Social Security system to meet their basic needs. Social Security retirement, disability and survivors benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) serve as a vital lifeline, making up a significant percentage of total family income for many workers and families.

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The average yearly benefit for the lowest quintile of earners receiving retirement benefits in 2010 was $10,206—and that represented 94 percent of their family income. Social Security Disability and SSI benefits are incredibly modest as well. The average SSDI benefit is about $1,100 per month in 2013, and the average SSI benefit is less than $550 per month. And for most disabled workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), their benefits make up most or all of their income. Even the maximum SSI benefit ($710 in 2013) is just three-fourths of the federal poverty level for a single person, and a quarter of SSDI beneficiaries live in poverty.

The amount a person gets in Social Security or SSI benefits is adjusted annually based on the Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA). The chained CPI would slow the increase in the Social Security COLA, cutting benefits and eroding the purchasing power of seniors, people with disabilities and their families. Cuts under the chained CPI add up significantly over time. Since the effect of the chained CPI is cumulative, it would be especially hard on people with disabilities, since they typically begin receiving benefits at a younger age than retirees.

The chained CPI is not a more accurate measure of inflation for seniors and people with disabilities. It is based on a concept called the “substitution effect”—which assumes that when the price of one good goes up, a consumer will substitute a lower-cost alternative in its place (e.g., when the price of steak goes up, a person will buy hamburger instead). For Social Security and SSI beneficiaries who are struggling to make ends meet as it is, there’s no room for substitution—and no room for benefit cuts. Benefit cuts under the chained CPI would push beneficiaries to make impossible choices such as not paying the gas bill to afford the water bill, taking half a pill instead of a whole pill or eating two meals per day instead of three to afford the cost of a copay on a needed medication.

Low-income seniors and people with severe disabilities are already struggling and can’t afford cuts. Send this e-mail to Congress to tell them NO on the chained CPI, and to keep Social Security cuts out of any budget plan. For AARP’s chained CPI calculator, click here.

11) From Jim Weill, President, Food Research and Action Center: “Tell Congress: Increase, Don’t Cut SNAP (Food Stamp) Benefits.”

SNAP is a great program—boosting food security, health and nutrition and lifting millions out of poverty and millions of others out of deep poverty. But as a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine expert committee just found, for most families benefits simply aren’t enough to afford a healthy diet for the month. This means that the program isn’t doing as much for food security, poverty reduction, child development, disease prevention and healthcare cost containment as it could. And despite a series of Pinocchio-inspired political attacks on the program in the 2012 election season and in this year’s run-up to SNAP reauthorization as part of the Farm Bill, public support for the program is high: 73 percent of voters believe the program is important to the country; 70 percent say cutting it is the wrong way to reduce government spending; and 77 percent say the government should be spending more (43 percent) or the same (34 percent) on SNAP. This support crosses parties, demographic groups, and rural, urban and suburban lines.

Here’s what you can do: Tell your Representatives and Senators that the right course for the nation is to improve food stamp benefits (and support at least the temporary benefit boost the President has proposed) and that they must oppose any SNAP cuts being considered by the Agriculture Committees in the “Farm Bill.”

12) From Debbie Weinstein, executive director, Coalition on Human Needs: “Tell Congress to stop harmful cuts to anti-poverty programs now.”

Across the country, federal “sequestration” cuts (aka mindless automatic reductions) are closing Head Start programs weeks early and canceling summer programs for poor 3-to-5-year-old children; some Head Start centers are closing altogether or dropping children. Seniors are losing home-delivered meals or homemaker services that allow them to remain at home instead of being pushed into nursing homes. The long-term jobless are losing 10 to 20 percent of their meager benefits; in Maine, they decided to cut all unemployed people off of assistance nine weeks early. One hundred forty thousand fewer families will get rental housing vouchers, despite waiting for help for years, which will contribute to rising family homelessness. Education is being cut, from pre-school to the Federal Work-Study Program (formerly “College Work-Study”) that helps students finance college through part-time employment. In Michigan, they are eliminating a $137 back-to-school clothing allowance for 21,000 poor children.

These cuts are wrong and foolish any way you slice it—they keep people poor, cost jobs and stall economic growth for everyone.

Send this e-mail to your Representative and Senators and join hundreds of thousands who are fed up that Congress would ignore these problems while fixing just one thing—inconvenient delays at airports. Also, for weekly summaries of the impact of these sequester cuts, click here.

Standing for Communities: ‘The Power of Collective’ (from the Marguerite Casey Foundation via Equal Voice News)

Clips and other resources (compiled with James Cersonsky)

“Prenatal Care from Midwives May Lead to Healthier Babies, Healthier Moms,” Sarah Benatar

“Occupy Protesters Shut Down Wells Fargo Over ‘Fraudulent Foreclosures,’” Dan Bluemel

“Is segregation really bad for everyone?” Steve Bogira

“The Communities of Climate Change Are Leading the Charge,” Center for Social Inclusion

“That Unemployment Form Might Violate Your Civil Rights,” Michelle Chen

“Sequestration Cuts Strapped Domestic Violence Services Amid Increased Need,” Bryce Covert

“A Giveaway to D.C. United Won’t Benefit the District’s Urban Fabric,” Brady Dale

“SNAP Will Take a Hit Even Before the Farm Bill Battle Begins,” Stacy Dean

“Playing ‘chicken’ against city’s students,” Eileen McCafferty DiFranco

“Surprise fast food strike…in St. Louis,” Josh Eidelson

“Fast Food Strike Wave Spreads to Detroit,” Josh Eidelson

“Documenting Discrimination in Local Rental Markets,” Hannah Emple

“Americans Continue to Voice Strong Support for SNAP and Strong Opposition to Cuts,” Food Research and Action Center

“Critics decry Pennsylvania’s revived asset test on food stamps,” Kate Giammarise

“Disconnected Mothers Need Help in More Than One Way,” Olivia Golden, Marla McDaniel and Pam Loprest

“In Support of the Indian Child Welfare Act,” LaDonna Harris

“House SNAP Proposal Threatens Grave Harm to Poor Single Parent Families,” Legal Momentum

“Child Benefits in the Tax Code: Does the current system make sense?” Elaine Maag

“America Needs to Put its Families First,” Jennifer Martinez

“How People Power Generates Change,” Moyers & Company [VIDEO]

“Fannie and Freddie Should be Making Statutorily Required Contributions to the National Housing Trust Fund,” National Low Income Housing Coalition

“NYC Announces Pilot Expansion of EITC,” New York City

“How the Maximum Family Grant rule hurts families,” Melissa Ortiz

“Mothers Cry for Justice,” Peter Rothberg [VIDEO]

“3 Ways Sequestration Is Taking a Toll on Struggling Americans,” Lauren Santa Cruz and Erik Stegman [VIDEO]

“Fast Food Workers Strike in St. Louis,” Annie Shields

“Sequester Cuts to Emergency Unemployment Insurance Compensation will likely cost around 30,000 jobs,” Heidi Shierholz

“Oregon Medicaid Study Strengthens—Not Weakens—Case to Expand Medicaid,” Judy Solomon

“The Ties that Bind: Helping Mothers Behind Bars,” Nancy La Vigne

Studies/Briefs (summaries written by James Cersonsky)

“Underwriting Bad Jobs: How Our Tax Dollars are Funding Low-Wage Work and Fueling Inequality,” Amy Traub and Robert Hiltonsmith, Demos. The largest employer of low-wage workers isn’t McDonalds or Macy’s—but the federal government. In a report on job standards for federal contractors and federally subsidized jobs, Demos examines the many ways that taxpayer dollars are helping to keep people in poverty through low-wage work. The quantitative analysis covers a subset of private sector contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements and property leases: government contracts, federal healthcare imbursements, Small Business Administration loans, federal construction grants and maintenance of buildings leased by the federal government. Among these jobs, nearly two million pay $12 or less per hour—more than the number of Walmart and McDonalds workers making that amount combined. The largest numbers come from Medicaid-supported jobs (759,000) and direct federal contracts (560,000). Meanwhile, CEOs of government contractors are getting richer—as their maximum salaries are pegged to exorbitant private sector standards. The report calls for an executive order requiring federal agencies to raise workplace standards and ensure compliance with labor law, and oversight over private sector beneficiaries—including evaluation of whether the labor they employ should be through private contractors or moved to the public sector.

“Latinas and Sexual Assault,” Neusa Gaytan and Maralá Goode, Mujeres Latinas en Acción. Though sexual assault affects everyone everywhere, Latinas confront particular challenges. This report gives a Chicago-area profile of the crisis. The numbers tell some of the story: nationally, 11.2 percent of Latina high schoolers are reported to have been physically forced to have sex, compared to 8 percent of all high school students; in 2012, 21 percent of survivors who received services from Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault centers are Hispanic. Of thirteen service providers analyzed in the report, all identified a gap in services for adolescent survivors—a particularly acute problem for Latino/as. In all age groups, Latinas face systemic barriers in accessing services: discrimination and racism from law enforcement and social service staff; unfamiliarity, among some, with legal procedures; and a lack of Spanish-speaking staff providing services for survivors. The report lays out steps for strengthening the legal process, youth outreach and bilingual, culturally-specific service training.

“Preventable Deaths: The Tragedy of Workplace Fatalities,” National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. In 2011, 4,609 workers were killed on the job in the US—and yet the federal government can only levy $7,000 in fines for “serious” workplace safety violations, and the average fine in these cases is only $1,680. What results is a perverse incentive structure for employers not to improve conditions for workers, who may lack knowledge of safety laws or leverage to speak up. This report lays out the conditions faced by the most vulnerable classes of workers, and what local and federal government can do to fix them. Temp workers, for example, tend to be younger, less educated, less likely to be US citizens and more likely to be employed in hazardous jobs like waste management and construction. Model remedies include Cal/OSHA’s robust inspection system for companies that use temp work and Massachusetts’s Temporary Worker Right to Know Law. Immigrant workers face language barriers, service providers and workplace personnel with insufficient knowledge of their legal rights and outright discrimination. Undocumented workers in particular need whistleblower protections for reporting employer abuses. Another class of workers, especially in retail and public services, face workplace violence, including from those they serve. For these workers, the report recommends strengthening on-site security and prevention standards.

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DC/MD: Labor Picket Outside of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee Spring Ball